Redmi Note 3 Bootlooping? Here’s the fix

Sometime over the last couple of days, Google allowed an update to Google Play Services which has affected some Android 6.0 based devices, including those running CM13 (Cyanogenmod 13), which came preloaded on a number of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 smartphones that we sold over the last year. Upon updating automatically, apps will start to crash, and then entire phone will crash, sending it into a startup loop (known as a “bootloop”). App updates should never affect the system from booting, but somehow Google managed to let this slip past – thanks Google!

Thankfully there is a fix for these devices in the form of an update that resolves the issue, and also gets you the added bonus of getting your phone on the latest version of Android. If you are unaffected, you won’t need to do anything, but you may want to disable automatic updates in the Play Store for a little while until Google fixes this. You may want to follow this guide anyway if you wanted to update to the latest Android and get the latest improvments and features. If you can’t install the fix right now, you can get past the bootlooping by holding volume down when the blue loading icon appears, which should eventually get you into “Safe mode”.

To update, you will need:

A computer running Windows, MacOS or Linux

A working internet connection

A working MicroUSB cable

Once you have that, take a look at the following video tutorial which explains how to download and install the update. Keep in mind that you are installing this at your own risk, and it is strongly recommended you make a backup of your device in the recovery and copy your files to your computer. If you are unable to follow this tutorial for whatever reason, we are more than happy to install the update for you bring your device to us.

There are two update packages depending on the specific type of Redmi Note 3 that you have, so make sure you work out which variant you have before you begin. The two variants are the Redmi Note 3 (Standard, codename “Kenzo”) and Redmi Note 3 4G Plus Special Edition (codename “Kate”). The easiest way to work out which version you have is to simply measure the height of your device – the Kenzo is 150mm tall, whilst the Kate is 152.5mm tall. Check this before you download an update package.

Once these ZIP files download to your computer (most will default to the “downloads” folder), you will need to extract them to a folder. On most operating systems you should be able to double click on the ZIP file and you should be given the opportunity to extract them all to a folder. This will create a folder right next to the ZIP file (eg. “Downloads” -> “Redmi Note 3 Standard (KENZO) LOS14.1 Update”. You will then need to copy this to your device, which is explained in the update tutorial video.

Optional Extras:

Assuming your device has updated successfully, you are now able to take advantage of a new Google Camera app which greatly enchances the camera quality of your device. All you have to do is visit this page on your device and download and install the new Google Camera app from here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5IvfFFdiPDrNnVabnVHTlE4QW8

Once that is installed, you may want to remove or uninstall existing camera apps and place an icon on your home screen for quick access, which we demonstrate in the tutorial video linked above.

Adding or Removing Superuser (Root) access:

As explained in the tutorial video, you have a choice of having superuser access on your device or not. We have always included it by default as it allows for adblocking, but you may want to go without it if you need to run apps that prohibit you from having root access. If you flash all the files that we recommend then you will have root, but if you wish to remove root, follow the steps below:

Enter into the recovery. As shown in the earlier tutorial, this can be done by holding the volume up key, and press the power key until the screen comes on, then let the power key go whilst keeping the volume up button held down. Let all buttons go once it loads the recovery.

Hit “Install” and navigate to the folder you saved the file you downloaded earlier.

The file should be called “LineageOS-addonsu-remove-arm64-signed.zip”. Select it and swipe to flash.